Ungrateful minds!
Sometimes people say Chinese are of ungrateful breed,
despite being a Chinese myself, I tend to agree.
Due to my close affiliation with a local college, I recently have fought for a
quota from them for a governmental financial aids (fully funded) skills-based
training programs for school leavers aged 16 – 26, who are either not the
studios type or those who don’t have the luxury to continue studying in
tertiary education. Upon completion of these programs, the students will obtain
certification and qualification that are recognized by the government, as well
as industries, in general. My intention, initially, was to bridge these
programs to Chinese communities, who otherwise would have limited access to.
However, after much efforts of talking to many ‘counselors’ of
Chinese Schools and arranging for a media announcement in a well
circulated local Chinese daily, it was simply a waste of time. It possibly boiled down to few main reasons, I
believe:
- Those ‘counselors’
at school were too ‘lazy’ to contact their school leavers to tell them
about these programs. - Narrow
minded parents just couldn’t be bothered, even if they have read the news
announcement (came out in the news twice!) Probably they think, as the
Cantonese’ saying goes “No such big frog hopping on the street!” - I wasn’t
doing a good job in sharing this.
I know perfectly the third reason above is of the least
relevance, as I had requested the college to send their staff to conduct a
series of programs previews at the schools (participation of Chinese schools was
just disappointing!)
Well, then I tested bringing these programs to the
Kebangsaan Schools (I figured there might still be a large pool of Chinese
students), the results were in the reverse! We had greater participation from
there, and I can assure you that 95% of the quota offered was filled up by,
again, you-know-who.
I am just wondering why don’t they go for these programs
which bring only benefits? Unlike the privileged Bumiputras, we Chinese really
don’t have much choice, in contract, after leaving secondary schools. If we ain’t
smart enough and ain’t have enough $$$, we are left with only one choice – that
is to venture into the ‘Social University’. The country
is giving limited quotas for non-Bumiputra races in vocational schools,
matriculation programs, government funded universities, and if we can’t excel
in secondary schools and if our parents can’t afford private tuition fees, we
are pretty much doomed to start working at relatively young age.
Here on one hand, we Chinese like to complain that the government isn’t doing
much help to us in comparison to the privileged Bumiputras; while on the other
hand, when offers are laid on the table, we just simply don’t appreciate
it!
March 25th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
I actually believe that reason 2 is the biggest reason. Most parents simply don’t believe it. We have the perception that the Govt won’t give Chinese a cent. And if they do, the grant will come with a whole bunch of strings including bond to govt board, etc which might be undesirable. So I am not surpirse they just turned away.
I prefer not to look at it in a negative way. Chinese are simply not accustomed to getting hand-outs, which is not entirely a bad thing. That is not really narrow-minded. If more grant like these are available, and people start believeing in that govt is sincere in helping, then they might sign up. Even a change for the better is a change that is often resisted.